Anim8or Community
Artwork => Finished Works and Works in Progress => Topic started by: johnar on February 05, 2010, 08:46:37 pm
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hello all. :D
I've decided my main mission this year is to become good at character animation using Anim8or.
Everytime i make a new one, i'll post it in this thread, and at the end of the year, will be able to compare any improvements over the year.
Comments, C and C, ideas, questions are all 'more than welcome'.
(join in ?)
Heres my first short clip of 2010.
'Dangerous games of the Outback'
Mostly done with sequences, and then tweeking in scene mode.
Second Clip.
Chill Out
Thanks. :)
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Ha ha ha, very imaginative, johnar! Clever bit of ducking there at the last instant, too.
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That's a great start, johnar! I look forward to watching your progress over the year, though I think to be fair you're already a long way ahead of quite a few of us in this area!
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Lucky johnar. I suck pretty bad at character animation. The only thing I wanna say is that you limit your self a little too much to your signature style, with the round eyes and the poked out lips. Any different styled characters?
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haha :D
very cool!
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IM going to school for 3d modeling/animation this year :D
I'll check back on this post to see your progress though, animation is my slightly lesser ability at the moment. good luck!
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A little criticism that I hope will help you improve. I'm not an expert animator myself, but hopefully I can provide some good criticism!
My main thought on the walk/jog/run cycles is that they don't appear to have as much weight as they should. In the run cycle specifically, he almost seems to float through the air. I think a bit more up and down motion, with the feet hitting the ground a bit harder would help with the realism. Of course, the spear is sliding somewhat, but that's difficult to avoid in Anim8or, probably the best way being two figures (one with the spear, one without.)
The reaction is a bit too quick when he dodges the spear. Perhaps if he had a second to notice it first, then react by diving or ducking as he did (though when he ducks he shouldn't come up so quickly.)
Good work though, I always love to see your animations, and I hope this help you master character animation in Anim8or!
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Very nice movement and improvement!!!! but if u look hard that the first time he throws the spear and catches it why does it flip sides in the blink of an eye? u shold watch out for those frames.
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Hi again, and thanks for the posts. :)
RudySchneider: Thanks for enjoying that short foray,. ;)
I'm intending to visit www.rudyschneider.com for a proper look next time i'm on a decent connection. Am sure i'll see some cool stuff,
Mills. thanks. i'll try to keep you interested. :)
davdud101: Was going to use a stickman for this, because its really mostly about the animation. But if i use the characters i have, then i can also keep an
eye on skinning behaviour, etc.. while i'm at it.
yeah, i'll make some new characters one day, for sure.
neirao: Thanks. . Every laugh counts. Glad you liked it. :)
sgwan: Good luck at school this year. I spose you'll be using 3DStudio max, or similar, so you'll be using an IK animation system. That'll be cool. IK
certainly does hav advantages over FK. would be good to see some of your stuff later in the year.
hiho: Good criticisms. :) . Its funny you should mention weight, becoz thats exactly what i'm working on at the moment. Its tricky, but i'll keep trying. Am doing a bit of 'heavy box lifting', but haven't got it yet. (PERSERVERANCE!!) Will also keep the weight issue in mind when next doing any walk/run cycles.
I did use 2 figures. 1 with spear, 1 without, and yes, he does dodge that spear a fraction too quickly.
Excellent crits. Thanks for not letting me get away with it. :D
NeonFalcon: Yip. Thats another fault which i just let pass. thanks for keeping me honest. It was laziness,
Thanks again all. I'll keep working on things, and hav something new in just a little while.
:)
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an exercise i was thinking would help with charicter animation; would be a gym. make file with just your charicter, and then in scene mode, no seqences, put him through a workout. pushups, jumping jacks, shadow boxing exetera, but dont save. and each day put him through it again. my thoughts anyway. think ill try that.
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Hi mak,
Good idea. !!
I'll do that too. Might even add some gym equipment later on. ;)
First i'd like to get this 'showing weight' thing sorted.
I can show weight with things like 'concrete blocks falling to the floor', but showing in a character is a bit more tricky.
At times i'm wondering how possible it will be, using FK animation.
After looking at some examples made using IK, i notice that a lot of the main movement is in the hips. Thats easy with IK, you can drag the hips downwards and the feet stay firmly planted to the floor.
Not so easy with FK. Even bending legs requires repostioning feet every time. I've been trying different rig setups, to try and get a sequence, but might hav to use scene mode, and repostion feet with the 'position' key.
But i'll persevere. ;D
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Well, mak... It's a perfect excersize for those needing to working on their skinning skills... Just a little drasctic to do this everyday and not even save it.
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Personally, i really like the idea, but think i'd be inclined to save 'weekly'.
mak: What i'll probly do is start Sunday, and try to do an hour of exercises every day, and render out the best one of each day. Then, on the next Sunday, choose my favourite render, save that, and get rid of the rest. (1 final render per week)
If I/we, could keep up that commitment for 6 months or more, we gotta be getting better. ;)
I'm Prepared for some 'frustrations', but the end goal will be worth it.
Just a thought to add. Although we are using an FK system, it wont be wasted time if/when we move to an IK system. Theres a lot more to animating characters than just posing the figures, so anything we can learn now is bound to put us at a good start if/when switching to an IK system.
I like the idea of 'exercising exercises', and you're welcome to share this thread with your stuff. (if you want to). We might even be able to help each other out.
Its all good. ;D
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this IS proving harder than i thought, several exercises a day aint gona happen. and the more i try this the more nessesary i think it is, for me at least, couse i suck.
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hook me up with a rigged model and ill join in. im still stuck on rigging or else id be animating as well.
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id let you have one of mine but im not sure how to send it
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mak: :)
I'll probly start off with press-ups?, and then some situps.
You could try having a go at either of those. When i've done mine, i'll post the .an8 file here, and if you want to, you can download it and see if anything in there might help. (questions welcome).
rellik420: if i post the .an8 of the situps, you could download that and use the character out of there.
He will just be a simple sphere and cylinder dude though.
davdud101: lol. I think you must've posted in the wrong thread. Do you think you could move or delete that last post. Cheers
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rellik: http://cg-nation.com/repository (http://cg-nation.com/repository)
The first file in the repository is a .zip file of Anim8or rigs. Some more complicated, and some simpler, they're all very useful though.
I hope that helps.
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whoops, ur right.
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Hi,
This is my anim8ion stickman. (or should i say 'sausageman'.) (Gym.jpeg below)
Anyway, i've uploaded this character for you to download if you wish. Included in the .an8 is the complete 'press-up' sequence, and i've added a couple of morph targets to eyes.
You're welcome to use him for any anim8ions. His name is 'Gym'. ;) (Gym.zip below)
This week, i tried press ups.
Not easy using FK animation.
The problem is keeping hands and feet on the floor.
Naturally, when in the 'up' position, hands are firmly on floor. But when bending the arms to go 'down', of course the hands will move with the arms. So i had to manually position the hands 'frame by frame'. (far from perfect)
This type of movement is probably one of the biggest disadvantages of using an FK animation system, rather than an IK system.
Press-ups give a perfect example of this shortfall.
Sit-ups, on the other hand, should not involve the same problem, as the majority of movement will be in the torso.
My next exercise will be sit-ups, and if they go well, some other exercises too.
:)
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lol, nice jonhar
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kinda emberased by what i came up with
i tried to cheat with the pushups by just removing the floor, but it still looks sad. i am rather happy with the bench press though.
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Hi mak,
Really cool. ;D
The bench press is excellent, I like the bend in the bar, and the way that he uses his feet to get that extra 'oomph'. ;)
Top job. Hope i can get mine to look as good. :)
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Wow, mak nice model, nice animation! Good work!
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Great stuff guys, I'm happy to see you're following through on these things! Some of the movements (like the back being depressed with the bench press) could be done easier with morph targets, just because you wouldn't have to reposition the character each frame.
Great stuff though, I look forward to seeing what else you make.
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Hello Johnar,
I have seen your work on YouTube before, but faved on another users account. It was that user who informed me about Anim8or and directed me here. I was curious if you know how much anim8or's motion is recorded like BVH? Because there is a huge library of BVH data files at the CMU archive.
oh btw BVH stands for biovision hierarchy and is a motion capture file so you wouldn't need any IK. Keep up the humor in your videos, I like that.
WB
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Heres a bench press.
Not as good as yours mak, but, i gotta move on.
Not sure whats next for me.
Maybe some karate or tai Chi. ;)
Wacky B: :) Hi there. I've really got no idea about that, but i imagine there would be a whole ton of 'the right' code involved for a program like this to read bvh motion files.
I've played with bvh files in Poser. Its very cool, and easy way to get decent movement into yor characters, but i got bored pretty quickly. Decided i'd rather learn to animate myself, rather than be restricted to using movements that other people hav made.
Blender does animation. (IK?) Hav you tried much animation yourself, using either Blender or Anim8or?. Your modelling looks great. Surely you've dabbled with the animation system in Blender?. Like anything else, its a matter of 'sticking with it'. Once you pass a few hurdles, you'll probly get by quite well without needing to rely on Bvh motion files?
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Every time I try. I can import the armature from BVH to blender no problem. But when I parent the mesh to the armature they look like pretzel people. :D Someone on a Blender forum informed me that the BVH import script was made almost 10 years ago and then never updated. Blender has IK but I never scratched the surface on how to use it proper. I know some basics like bones and bone groups. I opened a BVH in word and the AN8 in word they look a lot like each other using braces for grouping, that's why I asked.
Thanks for the kind words,
WB
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Juggling 3 balls on a uni-cycle. ;D
WIP
Well, its all a learning process. My mistake here was that i did the juggling first. Then, when i put him on a uni-cycle, i realised that body movements upset the hand positionings for the balls. (so i haven't given him any body movements this time. Just arms and legs) (but the wheel goes round when he pedals, ;) )
So, i think i'll do this one again, but maybe add body movements first, and do the actual juggling LAST.
I could reposition the hands now, but the keys could all get a bit messy, so i think starting again would be the better way to go. :)
The pedaling is a sequence, so really only need to redo the upper body movements, and the balls.
P.S. Have just watched it on youtube, and the hands/balls seem a bit blurry. Or is that just me......
This 1 is an .avi, i usually upload .wmv.
If it seems too blurry to anyone else, i might convert it and upload again. :-\
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some really good sync in juggling animation johnar the the first video of catching his own javelin was hilarious
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Thanks Bob_I_Ts,
And really good to see you back here at ther forums. :)
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I love the bench press! I thought sort of as a side musing, "gawd this is a bore unless looking for techniques," but then the head-whop really changed the feel of it!
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I love all of your videos Johnar. It was seeing that funny eyeball tutorial that got my attention. Ah, Spring break and no where to go... :'(
I would have gone to Florida but I am broke again. So I guess I will make some more fairies and try some animation. Contact my texture guy and get the status on my textures. :-\
Keep up the good videos,
WB
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Hi again. :)
WB. Thanks for your comments. Hope all is well.
Arik The Red. I agree. Its too boring posting little bits and pieces that don't really do much.
So i got carried away with the juggling sausage-man and ended up with this:
Chill Out'
Its got some character animation attempts, like a bit of dancing, lip syncing and stuff.
It wasn't made to a 'plan', or script, and i don't really know what to think of it. Just spent too much time on it to write it off, so had to persevere and finish it
Now i can get back to some other stuff that i 'planned' on doing before i got bogged down with this. ;)
Hope its reasonably ok to watch.
C and/or C welcome. :)
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haha that was awesome. very original and very entertaining. great job.
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Cool work, as usual, Johnar. Just one thing bugs me, though. In the first half of the film, you've got the guys on the unicycles peddling back-and-forth to maintain balance. The problem is the forwaqrd-and-reverse motion of the wheel doesn't correspond with its rotation. That is, when one fellow peddles backward, the wheel actually moves forward. It's a little thing, yes, but the eye catches details that don't make sense such as that.
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Thanks guys.
Cheers rellik420 :)
Hi there. RudySchneider: I always appreciate your comments. :)
I'm looking at the vid, and don't actually see the bit you're talking about. (i am going blind though) ;)
It sort've looks right to me, unless i'm seeing it wrong. (which i must be, coz i know that you're onto the physics/movement of things like that
I just can't see it. (the wheel going fwd as he pedals back)
Is it all the time during the back and forth movement, or just for a moment.?
You've got me worried here. ( Am i going mad.) :).
EDIT: i just looked again. OK. I see what you mean. Yes. Well, it never occured to me. I honestly thought i had that right. But, no.
The wheels are 'rotating' correctly, but the movement 'on the ground' is wrong.
Well spotted. Glad u picked that up. :)
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I really don't have much knowhow on 3D animation. I'm just enjoying watching them. The first clip was really good. I like the last part of it. The second clip was just so silly, lol. Thus was nicely done from unkind gunfights to becoming friends. Good job!
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Very funny, creative animation, well anim8ted :D You're definitely progressing with smoothness of movements.
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back and i was working on a project aswell.link: "Anim8or Community > Artwork > Finished Works and Works in Progress > my real work"lol cant find the link
give me improvment tips on that and johnar very big improvement since o last visited. very smooth